Jun 22 2015

Lauren Watkins

Before his set on Rock On The Range, Tech N9ne sat down with Alternative Press TV to discuss what he would bring to the table at the festival in Columbus, OH, and also discussed present and future collaborations.

Enjoying both a Sapphire gin, Sprite, and grenadine and a Bud Light, Tech interviewed with Josh from APTV to talk the rock festival, which rock artists he plans to work with, and taking things back to Kansas City with his favorite barbeque.

With Tech being known for collaborating cross-genres, he begins to discuss how he is not new to metal. He tells APTV how he has been a fan of Slipknot since 1999 and finally brought together a collaboration, “Wither”, which can be heard on his new album, Special Effects. When working with rock and metal artists, this isn’t his first walk in the park; he also collaborated with Serj Tankien of System of a Down, Chino Moreno of Deftones, and members of The Doors, one of his biggest musical influences. Tech even confirmed a collaboration with Metallica’s bassist Robert Trujillo for Trujillo’s documentary on famous bassist Jaco Pastorius (you may know him as the uncle of David Pastorius from Tech’s Band of Psychos).

When asked about artists he would want to collaborate with for future projects, he was quick to respond. He mentions wanting to work with Gary Clark Jr., an insane guitarist who also has cross-genre influences. Also, we hear him mention James Hetfield of Metallica. He proceeds to describe how the lanes of different musical genres do not and should not have boundaries in his eyes.

“I’m going wherever beautiful music is. I don’t care what genre it is – If I love it, we’re doing it. We’re going to fuse it together and create beautiful music together. People need each other, we need each other.”

After talking about future collaborations he would like to put together, he takes things back to Kansas City by naming off the best barbeque places in Kansas City, with Gates taking the cake. He also mentions other tasty BBQ restaurants to check out, including Jack Stack, L C’s, and Joe’s Kansas City.

Fearless in crossing musical lanes, Tech N9ne continues to change the hip hop game into something important and influential for the music industry. Combining multiple musical aspects into one masterpiece after masterpiece, it’s no surprise Tech continues to call himself a Klusterfuk.